


A Little Less Broken

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Andromeda still was a Black, Dealing With Loss, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Good Severus Snape, Injury, Mental Illness, PTSD, Severus Snape Lives, Severus Snape is still an arse, Talking About the Past, dealing with the past, healthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22812715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Andromeda Black Tonks knows what it’s like to grow up as a Slytherin, she was once a blood purist, she even knows more about the dark arts then how to fight them.She left all of that behind when she fell in love with Ted Tonks.Ted is gone, as is Dora, her daughter. All she has left is Teddy. Then she finds a injured Severus Snape— he’s supposed to be dead. He’s a utter git, always was, always will be.She can’t watch another person die, so many have. So, she takes him home like he’s a stray cat, but people don’t really fall in love with stray cats now do they?
Relationships: Andromeda Tonks/Severus Snape
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17
Collections: Love Fest 2020





	A Little Less Broken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LionLadyBee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LionLadyBee/gifts).



> I hope you like these two, and I couldn’t not go with this pairing for your prompt “Everyone deserves a person that can make their heart forget it was ever broken.”

  
”and I need you. Not in the ways survive, but in the ways that make life worth living.”– JmStorm

”Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.” – Ray Bradbury

Andromeda found him bleeding in the street as the rain poured down. It soaked through her heavy wool cloak; she could not even begin to comprehend how cold the man must be, with his torn robes. Long ago, what seemed like a lifetime ago, Andy trained to be a healer, but she knew she needed to get him home. His long limbs we're going to make this hard, the man was thin, thinner than the last time she saw him— but he was tall.

Never in a million years did Andromeda think she would be helping Severus Snape, of all people. She kneeled in the puddles— hand gripped his robes, and she Aparated them straight into her living room. Harry was watching Teddy, and to be honest; she was rather grateful for it. There was not something a six-year-old boy should not see.

Andromeda levated the wizard onto her dining room table. His robes were quickly removed with a simple spell, and she did not stare at him or at least tried not to. His skin was sickly, ghastly pale; his blood-stained skin made her sick to her stomach. She needed to save him. Not because he was a good person, not because he was innocent, but because of fact she could not watch another person die. Too many had died. Snape was a wretched person, but she could not stand by and do nothing.

She dug out the potions that would both wake the man and start working on the side wound he bled from. She knew the man was dangerous—he was Snape after all—but he would now owe her a life debt, and that was quite a powerful thing considering who the man was.

Severus’s black eyes opened, and he groaned in pain. ”Where am I?”

” You're safe,” said Andy, her tone desperate to soothe him, not unlike how she used to speak to her daughter and now her grandson.

He snarled, ”I did not ask that I asked. Where am I?”

Andromeda put her hands on her hips and muttered, ” It's me, Snape, Andromeda Tonks. The prefect who tried desperately to keep you from turning dark. I have zero interest in hurting you; without me, you would likely be dead. I found you bleeding in the street. I don't know how you ended up there or why, but I am not one for standing by and doing nothing.”

”Gryffindor,” Severus muttered his tone rough with pain, ”Stupid, brave, wear your heart on your sleeve, afool.”

Andy laughed, ”I am Slytherin—to my very core—not unlike you, but I just went down a different path than you did.”

”So you claim.”

”So I am. How did you end up in that alley Severus, who hurt you, and how are you even alive... Everyone believes your dead.”

Severus coughed, ”I should be dead. I honestly don't know how I survived. I don't know who it was; I only remember someone shouting traitor and then the pain. I was just walking home.”

Andromeda placed her hand on Severus’s cheek and said, ”Let’s get you in some warm clothes and some food in you. We can talk about it afterward. I want to hear what you have been up to in these last six years. That's what I want to know Severus because the wizarding world thinks your dead.”

He nodded wet, greasy black hair stuck to his face.

”Though first, I think you are rather in need of a shower.”

***************************

Andromeda couldn't believe what she had done— and yet there he was, Severus Snape of all people was sitting at her dining room table eating. He was dressed in clothes that had once belonged to Ted. His hair for once in all the years she had known the man was clean and looked soft. Severus had aged since he was the first-year student who thought Lucius Malfoy was the greatest wizard alive.

But, on the same token, he seemed older than the man who had fought in the war— but so did she. They were two older people who had seen far too much. Severus looked quite strange, wearing Ted’s clothes. A soft cream-colored sweater and a pair of muggle trousers.

After the man finished, he said, ”I should be going Ted should be home soon...”

”Ted’s dead, Severus, it's just my grandson and me. He's with Harry at the moment.”

His fork fell from his long fingers, the clatter of it hitting his plate filled her ears. ”How? How did it happen?” Severus’s face became paler if that was even possible.

Andromeda sat down across from him, ”The same thing that happens in all wars—wizarding or muggle—people get caught in the crossfire. The snatchers didn't see my husband as a person.Why would they care what happened to him? Why would they when Bellatrix, my sister, was willing to kill her niece.”

Severus looked as if he had seen a ghost, and maybe in a way, he had, ”Who else?”

”Too many to list. Remus, Fred Weasley, Lavender Brown, Crabbe, the son, Colin Creevy...”

His fingers looked like boned claws; nails pressed down into the oak wood table. Severus stared at her black sharp haunted eyes, ”They were just children!”

”So was Regulus! So were you! So were the Potters! So were the Longbottoms! So were so many this war has ruined, killed, and left disabled. So were the children at Hogwarts— when you were headmaster. So was Harry. But, I guess you and Dumbledore forgot that in your best-laid plans, didn't you?”

Severus couldn't look at her, his eyes downcast, Andromeda could nearly feel the shame that rolled off of him in waves. ”I should leave.”

She said, ”No, you shouldn't. You're still healing Severus. You need to take potions, and I think whoever went after you might try it again.”

”You don't want me here, Andy. This is your home, and I should not impose.”

She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest, ”You're not imposing Severus... I didn't save you from letting you die on the streets. You will stay, you will get a good night's sleep, you will take your potions, and you will rest. I am so utterly tired of death and losing people. I don't want to see your dead body in the daily prophet or a muggle paper.

You can sleep in the spare room; Teddy will stay with Harry until we decide where to go from here. If you are staying longer—then I will allow you around Teddy—if not then no harm, no foul, the boy has lost too many people to have someone in and out of his life like a ghost. And tomorrow, you will tell me what you have been doing over these last six years.”

”I should not be allowed around children; you know that, right?”

”Says the man who was a professor most of his life.”

His barking laugh made her smile, ”And that's precisely why I shouldn't be allowed near them.”

*********************

Harry was happy to spend more time with Teddy, as was Ginny, they had been begging her to allow then to watch him. It was morning, Severus seemed to be in more pain, he was curled up on a sofa.He winced and curled into himself further; Andy reached for a pain potion and brought it to the man.

”Take this, Severus.”

He nodded and did so.

Andromeda sat down in her armchair, picked up her knitting, went to work on it, and asked him, ”How did you survive?”

Severus muttered, ”Kreacher, the house-elf, he went on about having to save master Regulus’s friend.”

“Where have you been for the last six years?”

”In the muggle world. I have been just surviving in a sense.”

Andy was shocked by that; she took a strangled breath, ”But you hate muggles.”

Severus said, ”Actually, that's a lie.”

”What do you mean?”

”Looking back, Andy, with the clarity of not being a stupid teenager? I do not hate muggles— I hated my father, and because he was a muggle, I thought I hated all of them. I don't... I know how to blend in with Muggles; they don't care for the most part who someone is of where they came from.”

Andromeda’s knitting needles clanked together, she could not help but stare at Severus, ”And because of your interest in the dark arts.”

Severus stared at his hands and mumbled something she could not hear.

”You don't have to lie to me—Severus—I am a Black. I understand the allure of the dark arts; I likely read some the same books you have.”

He asked her bluntly, ”How did you end up with Ted Tonks?”

Andromeda set her knitting aside, ”That's an interesting story. I met him at a bar before our seventh year.”

Severus’s eyes widened, ”Weren’t you in the same year?”

”Severus, I meant the first I didn't see him as nothing more than a stupid mudblood.”

”I am shocked you're willing to say that, still, all things considered.”

Andromeda sighed, ”I know what you called Lily, Severus, and I don't use that word anymore. But, the truth I cannot deny is that at one point in time, I believed muggles and muggleborns we're less than myself. My grandson is a beautiful, happy, lovely child. He's also a half-blood, as was my daughter, and my Ted was a muggleborn. But, I was raised a Black just as your mother tried to raise you a Prince as much as she could.”

Severus said to her, ”You're an incredible person—Andromeda—Teddy is lucky to have you as a grandmother.”

“You're a decent human Severus Snape, now would you like me to make us some breakfast?”

He nodded.

**************************

Severus did not know why he had chosen to stay with Andromeda. It was not something that was thought out by either of them. Today after two weeks, Teddy was coming home, and the former professor was terrified of that fact. 

He knew he should leave; Severus knew he was the interloper— the dark wizard. But, to go would give up the comfort, the safety, the love and joy Andy had brought to his life. Neither planned to do whatever it was that they were doing.

Severus felt as if he had lived a hundred different lives, but also that he had never truly lived. A choice— a single choice, when he was a teenager, sent his life on a strange path. Muggles his age, we're fathers and mothers, they had jobs, owned their own homes, they had friends.

Wizards and witches were not much different; they too had similar life paths: the Weasleys, Andromeda, and even the Potters. But, no Severus Snape and Sirius Black were in this strange position— never allowed surely to grow beyond nineteen and painfully frozen in time. War did that, though. It took a young man and made him into an older man— without a life well-lived.

Part of Severus wondered if his feelings for Andromeda were linked to the fact that for once in his existence, he wanted to be like everyone else. But, also to be loved and wanted. Andy wanted him; she wanted him at her dining room table, on walks around the lake, in her bed. She wanted him—to love him—in a way no else had ever wanted him. Surely not Lily.

No—that was not it all—he had grown to love Andromeda because of the simple fact she understood what it felt like to have a foot in each world. She knew what it was like to be a Slytherin in a sea of other house colors, but unwelcome by other Slytherins— unwanted by their own family.

Harry Potter stood before him, a boy with shocking blue hair hiding behind him. The boy must be Teddy; he looked like a mixture of Remus Lupin and Dora Tonks.

His former student snarled wand, pointed at his face, ”Who are you?”

”Potter, you have known me for a quarter of your life, so show you're not as foolish as you look and guess, ”he smiled ruefully and stared at the man who both like the man who had made his life miserable, but also the girl who had meant everything to him. Lily was far more than a passing fling; she was like a reason to keep living. Both when he was once a child and then after her death.

She was something Severus could not explain, and yet Severus knew in his heart he would never have been to her what she was to him. He was far too broken for such a thing. But, he never had been truly in love with her— looking back, he knew that. To truly love someone in a healthy way, the right way— the love had to be returned.

”Snape! Your suppose to be dead!”

Severus could not help but laugh, ”Why does everyone keep saying that? As if you believe I was too stupid to know what was to come. Potter tell me what you think happened to my body, huh?”

Harry said, ”We assumed the snake ate you.”

”And yet here I sit.”

Harry muttered, ”Do you have to be an arse, still?”

”Do you have to be a foolish Gryffindor? Do us both a favor and put the wand down. Before you hurt someone.”Severus snarled at his former student and narrowed his eyes.

Andromeda stepped in the living room, her skirt brush against the floor. ”He does have a point, Harry.”

”He’s dangerous, Andy.”

”And yet you named your youngest son after him.”

Severus cried out, ”You did WHAT?”

Potter tangled his fingers into his long unruly curls, so much like his father, ”I named him Albus Severus, looking back that might not have been the smartest thing.”

Severus felt his face turn heated, and laughter bubbled up, ”You know you could have just cursed that poor child? It would have been far kinder.”

Harry snapped, ”It felt like the right thing to do— at the time.”

”You mean, make yourself feel even more like a hero?”

Harry shouted, red-faced, ”I am No, HERO!”

”And yet you pretend you are, ONE!”

Andromeda cried out, cutting through their anger like a knife, ”If you must act like the teenage boys neither of you is, then do so away from the actual child. Now, if you want to talk like adults, I will go put on the kettle. Teddy go to your room.”

The little boy cried out, ”But, gran, I have so many questions for him!”

”You have been with uncle Harry for two weeks; surely, you have no more questions for him— that he hasn't already answered.”

The boy changed his hair to an inky black; it grew straighter and longer; it also gained a slight shine to it. It was quite odd for Severus to see his hair on another person— more so a child, Lupin’s child, at that.

”Gran. Not uncle Harry, Mr. Snape! My teacher told me all about what he had done. Severus Snape is a hero he... Lied to Voldemort. He was a double agent. A spy like James Bond!”

”You can ask Severus about all of that later, now go to your room.”

”But... Gran!”

”Room now. Theodore Lupin. And stop saying that name it makes people uncomfortable.”

”But Dumbledore use to say...”

Andy said, ”Teddy, you never met Dumbledore.”

”But, uncle Harry told me!”

”And now, I am telling you to go to your room.”

Potter couldn't seem to help but smile, and Andy gave him a dirty look. But, Teddy, the boy, finally did as he was told. 

Severus didn't know whether to feel proud or ashamed. Maybe he should have just stayed ”dead.”

****************************

Andromeda’s head rested on Severus’s chest. Teddy slept in his room down the hall, the boy, for whatever reason, found him utterly fascinating. He tolerated the boy, no he cared for him, though he never would admit such a thing.

The particular fact that he was in the land living had been in the papers for weeks. Severus cared little for the attention or the order of Merlin for that matter. It just was—you could not refuse such a thing—people would question your sanity if you did. Maybe he wasn’t sane, but Severus believed that sane was a relative term. It depended much on what type of lens you were looking through.

During the era of the Roman Empire, throwing prisoners to lions was logical and right. During Salazar Slytherins time, fear of muggles made sense, but now not so much. And before the second wizarding war and during it, it made sense to have a man who had zero people skills— let alone a temperament to teach child potion’s made sense. If you removed the context, it was cruel. He hoped historians of the future muggle and wizarding would look at the context, but people, historians, we're infallible by nature. They were human too, not high elves in fantasy novels he enjoyed during his youth.

Severus knew he was incapable of replacing Ted Tonks, but he also had no desire to. But with this beautiful woman, Severus felt a little less broken, and he hoped Andy felt the same.

Tomorrow they would take Teddy to the park and feed the ducks.

The war was over; it was time to move on and live. The man—the death eater—who attacked him, was still out there. But, if the man dared to harm a single hair on Andromeda’s or Teddy’s head, he would get a taste of the man who Severus Snape had once been. This solider still had a little bit of fight left in him, even if he tried his best to let the anger of the old be buried in the ground of the shrieking shack. He had a chance a real-life, a normal life, and he was going to live it.

Just as Kreacher told him all those years ago, he should, when the house-elf used his strange magic to save his life.


End file.
